Over the past month the team has been working on tying up loose ends of mod development. With release date 4 ½ months away, we’re dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s.
With that, the last few ships on our shiplists are being touched up or being completely remade. Sizer, our Model/Texture Lead Developer, has been working around the clock to get the last few of our models in game and textured. Below you can see his completely redone Corellian Cruiser:
![New Corellian Cruiser [Textured]](https://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10662/thumb_620x2000/ccrpromo.png)
![New Corellian Cruiser [Textured]](https://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10662/thumb_620x2000/ccrpromo2.png)
Here’s what this awesome capital ship looks like in game with the normal and specular maps applied:
FriendlyFire has been working on improving the effects with the new graphical improvements of soft shading and dynamic lighting that W0dk4 has worked on. He’s vastly improved upon all the explosions, missile/torpedo trails and laser/turbos of the mod. He’s also started to work on some special effects that you’ll see littered throughout the mod upon release. Below is a teaser of one of these such effects:
The other big news is the inherent integration of anti-aliasing to Freeworlds: Tides of War. However, I'll let W0dk4 cover this topic since he was the one to bring it to Freelancer:
Since we have upgraded the Freelancer engine from Direct3D8 forward rendering to Direct3D9 deferred rendering we had a new problem - lacking anti aliasing. This is a common issue for deferred rendering on Direct3D9. Luckily for us, just recently a new post-process image-based anti-aliasing technique has been developed by Timothy Lottes from NVidia. The technique is called FXAA, which stands for "Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing" and is being used by many recent and upcoming games. It offers a great deal of quality while the performance loss is minimal.
We implemented the latest version (FXAA 3.11). If you want to read more on the technique, check out this whitepaper.
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(buried)
FIRST!
*starts digging the grave*
:P
I just bought freelancer for this xD
Awesome! :D
Many people do this like you. :P
Can't wait to see what that looks like with turrets!!
Oh, it already has turrets. I was just in the ship system where we test models/textures/effects. I'll be sure to show another picture of the ISD in all its turret glory!
Not the ISD, The Corellian Cruiser!!
It has turrets too. They're just smaller.
The media is great, but I'd like to hear more about the changes in the mechanics of the game.
Plenty of that floating about. Go read.
Follow this link: Moddb.com
Corellian Cruiser video is blocked by SME, i guess soundtrack is licenced or something.
Changed the soundtrack. Should be good to go in a few minutes.
Still not working for me :(
Man, ****** GEMA. Still not ready. Best upload it to Moddb
Ya. I'll get Sizer to do that sometime today.
whats the progress on this mode?
is it like 50% done?
ive been folowing for a while now and i would like to know so i can get freelancer again :)
thanks for the awesome mod!
It's about 80-85% completed in my estimation
I'm curious: how easy was it to implement FXAA? Are there any issues with the engine or effects ATM? Otherwise, I'm loving your decision - from what I've seen in my own experience, it's unbelievable how well it works and looks!
Also, I've read that FXAA will work on both NVIDIA and ATI/AMD graphics cards. Is this true?
I can't comment on the implementation on it, that will have to wait for W0dk4, but I can say that it does work on ATI cards as I have one. HD 5300. Worked like a charm.
It is very easy to implement, especially the latest version (read the integration step-by-step guide). Since it simply is a post processing shader, there are no hardware vendor limitations.
To be honest, I didnt really research the whole anti aliasing topic. I think the results are very good for a single pass post process shader (there is only so much you can do). I implemented FXAA specifically because it is currently widely accepted as the state-of-the-art anti aliasing technique that doesnt need a super computer.
This looks awesome, but my strong dislike for star wars won't let me get it.
Still no video. Deleted again. *sign* :(
Maybe put it somewhere for Direct Download?
Apparently the video was bugged. We're re-uploading now.
It works! It works!!! The Video is strong with us today!
Looking good guys, that anti-aliasing system works beautifully.
I do think that Corellian Cruiser looks like it could do with a bit more detailing in the texture, the linework looks like it just follows the wireframe of the model, break it up a bit with other lines in there, and perhaps add some raised and recessed panels in the normal map and add a little dirt to further break up the shapes some more and add a little more realism. I think those steps will raise it to the level of the other ships you have already done. Loving the design, just needs a little more polish.
i'm very happy to see FXAA v3 (3.11+ )spread so fast